Page 202 - Transcriptions d'actes notariés - Tome 20 - 1682-1686

the Enlightenment, that xholare have ben slow to aive to this journal
the attention which it undouh~edly deeerves. In tbe last few years research
ha3 hecn begun in the form of dissertations in three leading secular
universit ieq. One of these disserta tiona ha6 been recently putilished.
Previouely jt had heen the subject of two studies, one in the laai ccntury
by the Jesuit historian S~mmervo~el, the otlier, the published Ph. D.
thesis of Father Dumas, S.J. Finally. Prof. Palmer of Princeton Uni-
vetsity and the French historians, Paul Hazard and Daniel Mornet,
have kept some general interest in the Journal alive by tkieir raferences
to it in their works on the Enlightennient.
The Journal de Trévouz (its full title was Mknioires pour servir
à !'li.istoire des sciences el des .!waur-crrbs) was begun, it seems likely.
on the initiative of Lonis XIV's natural son, the Due de Maine, who
songbt tu provide for hie personal duc:hy, the Duchy of Dombes, a smell
district near Lyons, a jonrnal which would in sonie way compare with
that of the French Academy. In answer to the Duke's appeal, the Jesuits
at rhe infiuential college of Louis-le-Grand in Paria undertook to publish
the nerv journal; the first nnmbcr appeared in 1701, printed by the
Duke's printers in the small town of Trévoux in Donibes. That the
Jeeui tg' loi~rnal compared iavorabIy Ironi the beginning with the Aca-
demy's Journal des savants, despite various technical difficulties which
plagued die publishers in the early years of pnblication, is a distinct
tribnte 10 the conipetenc:e of the mernbers of the faculty of Louis-le-
Grand and to their valuable library facilities, and as wcll to the many
other Jeriuit correspondents in France and in oiher pafis of Europe who
cooperated with the editors in providing material for publication. It
is true that contributions from non- Jesuits were sought ; some important
artielei;, for erample, appear in the Journal friirn such distinpui~hed non-
Jesuiis as Leibnitz and Voltaire. Tlie assurnption is, however, that since
most of the article0 and surmnaries 01 books are unsigned, the greatest
part of the material pubtished was writlen by the editor ial ~taff and other
Je~uit correspondents.
lndeed it wae precisely becaux the editors at Louis-le-Grand could
snpplement their work with the help of other mernbers rif their Order
that the project was at al1 feasilile. Since tlie Jonrnalists' airn was to
inform the public on advancemcnts in learning, wbether spmulative or
technical, their wurces of infonnation had to be extensivc and depend-
aide. At tlic same tirne they hatl to have recourse to the advice 01 speciat
ista, wliere this was possible, in assessing the value of new works in
fields outside the competcnce of the editors tliemselves. In praçtice the
correspondents were called npon to scnd digests of books and news
items. It is intereshg to note that the aarly plan of the Journalists
enabled the authors to provide their own abstracts of their work, but
afier some experimentation it was decirled that more profit would corne
from summaries made by unhiased readers. The grealer part of eacb
nurnber wae devoied to thege sunlrnary acconnts; with the result that
over a period of sixty-IWO yearo, in more than 150,000 printed pages,
mnch of the hterature which appcarcd jn Eurov in the hrst half of
the eightcenth century was conimented upon in the Jou~M~. Little